Singapore’s largest bank has announced plans to reduce its workforce by 4,000 positions over the next three years, as artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly takes over tasks currently performed by humans.
“The reduction in workforce will come from natural attrition as temporary and contract roles roll off over the next few years,” a DBS spokesperson told the BBC.
Permanent staff are not expected to be affected by the cuts. The bank’s outgoing chief executive Piyush Gupta also said it expects to create around 1,000 new AI-related jobs.
It makes DBS one of the first major banks to offer details on how AI will affect its operations.
The company did not say how many jobs would be cut in Singapore or which roles would be affected.
DBS currently has between 8,000 and 9,000 temporary and contract workers. The bank employs a total of around 41,000 people.
Last year, Mr Gupta said DBS had been working on AI for over a decade.
“We today deploy over 800 AI models across 350 use cases, and expect the measured economic impact of these to exceed S$1bn ($745m; £592m) in 2025,” he added.
Mr. Gupta is scheduled to depart from the company at the end of March, with the current deputy chief executive, Tan Su Shan, set to succeed him.
The rapid advancement of AI technology continues to draw attention to its potential benefits and risks. In 2024, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) highlighted that AI could impact nearly 40% of jobs globally.
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva cautioned that “in most scenarios, AI will likely worsen overall inequality.”
Meanwhile, Andrew Bailey, Governor of the Bank of England, expressed a more optimistic view in an interview with the BBC last year.
He stated that AI would not be a “mass destroyer of jobs” and that human workers would adapt to collaborate with new technologies. While acknowledging the risks, Mr. Bailey emphasized the significant potential AI holds.